Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), and owner of Alarab News Channel, announced that the channel would begin transmission on February 1, 2015.

Prince Alwaleed also announced the appointment of Fahad AlSukait as the chairman of the Board and CEO of Arab TV News Company.

With a core focus on news, the all-Arabic language Alarab News Channel will deliver programming that covers politics, business and social affairs in addition to travel, sports and culture. The region’s leading business news will be delivered through its cooperation agreement with Bloomberg, which will provide world-class information to the region’s business community, a statement said.

Alarab will break the mould of news presentation, becoming a platform for transparent presentation and discussion of the region’s most intractable issues and challenges and will raise the relevant questions that are of concern to its viewers, according to the statement.

Alarab will feature expert opinion from renowned guests and never-before-seen social media interaction with its viewers, it said.

The announcement came during a press conference held today (December 15) and chaired by AlSukait with Jamal Khashoggi, general manager of the channel. A full update on the channel, the management, the technical capabilities and a brief overview of the programs of the channel was shared with the attendees, who also had an exclusive tour of the studios.

Recently, Alarab won “Broadcast Project of the Year” and “Best Set Design”, two prestigious awards at the annual ASBU BroadcastPro Summit and Awards in Dubai, reflecting the best-in-class infrastructure the team has put in place ahead of the launch, the statement said.

Based in Bahrain, Alarab News Channel features extensive news programming as well as regular news roundups, travel, politics, social affairs, sports and culture and the channel’s partnership with Bloomberg makes it the reference point for the business community across the region, the statement added.